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Just Curious: Medieval History and Identity


Shifte
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The two Shetland Documents books by archivist Brian Smith and John Ballantyne contain hundreds of relevant items from your time period.

 

In light of experience, one does wonder just how comprehensive, impartial and objective these works really are. :ponders:

 

Indeed. I find it hard to understand how Professor Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde found so much evidence for the trading between Shetland and Norway post 1469 but so little of it, if any, appears to be mentioned in the document books.....

 

@ Bluemire, why thankyou :wink: :D

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Well I wish you all the best of luck in getting what you want out of any potential changes in the future. It seems to be the popular opinion and I'm sure it'll come up for discussion when the SNP make their attempts to split off from England. I wonder if Orcadians feel the same way, though they're probably more diluted since they're so close?

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Well I wish you all the best of luck in getting what you want out of any potential changes in the future. It seems to be the popular opinion and I'm sure it'll come up for discussion when the SNP make their attempts to split off from England. I wonder if Orcadians feel the same way, though they're probably more diluted since they're so close?

 

So do I, but don't take these posts in a personal way. There's a lot of history that you probably don't know about yet!.

 

:)

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Hmmm...this might be the makings of a good Hollywood blockbuster. Potentially better than 'Between Weathers'?

 

Still, there are real reasons why many Shetlanders today don't 'feel' Scottish, although geopolitically they are Scots. After all, cultural identity is affirmed from both within and without. I think this fits within a spectrum of regional differences within modern Scotland , albeit perhaps at the far end of the axis.

 

Cultural diversity does not stop at metanarratives of national identity, but cascades downwards into much smaller discourses of identity, which can become pretty reduced (and pretty dangerous)! As I said, how islanders identify themselves today is the hangover of history. Your research should show up why, Shifte.

 

These are academic points, though. Personally, I think that denying either Scottish or Scandinavian components of 'Shetlandness' is blinkered.

All the same, most of our children, and all of their children will see themselves unashamedly as Scots. Denying that would be blinkered!

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Without meaning to be rude (or to offend half the population of Whalsay), doesn't your surname hint at your own connection to Scotland? You might not feel Scottish (neither do I), but new generations of islanders increasingly will. This swelling inter-generational difference is as clear as the nose on anybody's face (and recent studies of the way we use language have confirmed it).

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Just thought I'd throw the other side of the coin into the mix.

 

As a 19 year old, born and raised all my life in Shetland I would in no way consider myself "Shettish".

 

Firstly, I'm not particularly bothered, and don't really see why so many people are. But I would consider myself, Scottish, British and European. At the end of the day, the world is bigger than just Shetland! :)

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Just to clarify, the material from Jørn's book which is missing from the Shetland Documents books was suppressed following instructions from the Papal chancery. For further details see Baigent et al., The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.

 

 

Following an email to the Vatican , I am being sent a copy of Shetland's pre-1611 Lawbook. Hope it's not in medieval Latin

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The two Shetland Documents books by archivist Brian Smith and John Ballantyne contain hundreds of relevant items from your time period.

 

In light of experience, one does wonder just how comprehensive, impartial and objective these works really are. :ponders:

 

Indeed. I find it hard to understand how Professor Jørn Øyrehagen Sunde found so much evidence for the trading between Shetland and Norway post 1469 but so little of it, if any, appears to be mentioned in the document books.....

 

@ Bluemire, why thankyou :wink: :D

 

 

The two Shetland document collections are just that - SHETLAND document books. If the editors had set out to include every medieval and early modern European document that mentions Shetland or Shetlanders, they would still be collecting and compiling. As well as being exhausted from their travels.

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Just to clarify, the material from Jørn's book which is missing from the Shetland Documents books was suppressed following instructions from the Papal chancery. For further details see Baigent et al., The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.

Err, Brian, you do know that "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" was based on a hoax, don't you?

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